Talk for Korah 5781 Numbers 16-18

Num. 16:12 sent for and , sons of Eliab; but they said, “We will not come! 13 Is it not enough that you brought us from a land flowing with milk and to have us die in the wilderness, that you would also lord it over us? 14 Even if you had brought us to a land flowing with milk and honey, and given us possession of fields and vineyards, should you gouge out those men’s [= our] eyes? We will not come!” 15 Moses was much aggrieved and he said to the LORD, “Pay no regard to their oblation. I have not taken the ass of any one of them, nor have I wronged any one of them.”

Nili Fox, “Numbers,” Jewish Study Bible The rebels call a land flowing with milk and honey, thus attributing the bounty of the promised land to Egypt, the land of enslavement.

Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus (Anchor Bible) to Lev 20:24 a land flowing with milk and honey. This figure is generally taken as a metaphor for fruits as pure as milk and as sweet as honey. Recently, the proposal has been made that this expression is to be understood literally: it contrasts YHWH with , the fertility of the Canaanites, who ordains that šmm. šmn. tmṭrn/nḫlm. tlk. nbtm ‘the heavens rain fat/oil and the wadis flow with honey’ (KTU 1.6 III:12–13). “In this YHWH may have been doing one better than Baal—if valued dairy products over vegetable fat” (Stern 1992: 555). honey. dĕbaš. Akkadian dišpu and dibs refer to “honey” from either wild bees or dates. In the Bible, the latter is generally meant (cf. Deut 8:8, where dĕbāš replaces missing “dates”; Joel 4:18, where milk and ꜥāsı̂s ‘fruit juice’ stand in parallel; and Gen 43:11, where dĕbaš is included among vegetable products).

Baruch Levine, Numbers (Anchor Bible) 13. On “a land flowing with milk and sap” see the NOTES on Num 13:27. 13:27. flowing with milk and sap. The account of JE resumes here. The characterization zābat ḥālāb ûdebaš expresses an environmental perception representing the land of as abundant in flocks and herds, and rich in sap-giving trees—fig trees, for instance. Hebrew debaš, like its cognates in the Semitic languages, should not be taken to mean specifically bee’s honey. It simply conveys the sense of sweetness. By all indications, the honey industry was not developed in biblical Israel, though the Bible occasionally speaks of the honey of bees in the carcasses of animals, in tree trunks, or in crevices.

NAHMANIDES [to Exod 3:8]: A good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. The text goes on to praise it as a land for livestock, with good pasture and good water. Thus the animals would produce much “milk,” for good, healthy milk-producers demand a good climate, much grass, and good water. And because good pasture is also found both in marshy areas and on the highest mountains, where the fruits are not particularly rich and beautiful, it goes on to say that the fruits of this land are so rich and sweet that it oozes with the “honey” from them. “They shall come and shout on the heights of Zion, radiant over the bounty of the LORD—over new grain and wine and oil, and over sheep and cattle. They shall fare like a watered garden” (Jer. 31:11). Thus in Ezek. 20:6 it is called “a land flowing with milk and honey … the fairest of all lands.” e-mail: [email protected] iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/torah-talk/id291683417 web: http://mcarasik.wordpress.com/category/podcast/ contribute: https://www.paypal.me/mcarasik Biblical Hebrew: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/biblical-hebrew-learning-a-sacred-language.html Commentators’ Bible (Numbers): http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/jps/9780827609211/ © 2021 by Carasik, except for translations from Tanakh, by permission of the Jewish Publication Society.

Idan Dershowitz, “A Land Flowing with Fat and Honey,” VT 2010 & 2014 He let me choose for myself of his land, of the best that was his, on his border with another land. It was a good land called Yaa. Figs were in it and grapes. It had more wine than water. Abundant was its honey, plentiful its oil. All kinds of fruit were in its trees. Barley was there and emmer, and no end of cattle of all kinds. – “The Story of Sinuhe,” Lichtheim translation

האמח + שבד 2Sam. 17:29 honey, icurds, a flock,i and cheesej from the herd for and the troops Is. 7:15 people will be feeding on curds and honey Is. 7:22 Thus everyone who is left in the land shall feed on curds and honey. 20:17 The rivers of honey, the brooks of cream.

מש ן + שבד Deut. 8:8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and … of olive trees and honey Deut. 32:13 He fed him honey from the crag, and oil from the flinty rock, Jer. 41:8 We have stores hidden in a field—wheat, barley, oil, and honey. Ezek. 16:13 Your food was choice flour, honey, and oil. Ezek. 16:19 The food that I had given you—the choice flour, the oil, and the honey Ezek. 27:17 they trafficked with you in wheat of Minnith and Pannag, honey, oil, and balm.

Lev. 26:13 I the LORD am your God who brought you out from the land of the Egyptians to be .no more, who broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect [ ֹיְהִֽמ ת֥ םֶ֖הָל םיִ֑דָבֲﬠ ] their slaves

Num. 15:41 I the LORD am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God .I, the LORDyour God :[ תוֹ֥יְהִל ֶכָל ם֖ ִהאֵל םי֑ ]

2 Kings 18:26 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah replied to the Rabshakeh, “Please, speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; do not speak to us in Judean in the hearing of the people on the wall.” 27 But the Rabshakeh answered them, “Was it to your master and to you that my master sent me to speak those words? It was precisely to the men who are sitting on the wall—who will have to eat their dung and drink their urine with you.” 28 And the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in Judean: “Hear the words of the Great King, the King of Assyria. 29 Thus said the king: Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you from my hands. 30 Don’t let Hezekiah make you rely on the LORD, saying: The LORD will surely save us: this city will not fall into the hands of the king of Assyria. 31 Don’t listen to Hezekiah. For thus said the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me and come out to me, so that you may all eat from your vines and your fig trees and drink water from your cisterns, 32 until I come and take you away to a land like your own, a land of grain [fields] and vineyards, of bread and wine, of olive oil and honey, so that you may live and not die. Don’t listen to Hezekiah, who misleads you by saying, ‘The LORD will save us.’

e-mail: [email protected] iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/torah-talk/id291683417 web: http://mcarasik.wordpress.com/category/podcast/ contribute: https://www.paypal.me/mcarasik Biblical Hebrew: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/biblical-hebrew-learning-a-sacred-language.html Commentators’ Bible (Numbers): http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/jps/9780827609211/ © 2021 by Michael Carasik, except for translations from Tanakh, by permission of the Jewish Publication Society.